Cooking and Baking with Olive Oil instead of Butter or Margarine

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I love to bake and I love to cook. I think my love of cooking and baking started when I was really young watching my great grandma bake. She would always use butter or margarine in her cooking and baking. Everything always smelled so great in her kitchen.

As I grew older and began my own baking and cooking career as a mom I was quickly confronted with something I knew very little about, a dairy allergy. My little girl was born allergic to dairy, just like her dad and so my cooking really had to change to make our home cooked meals safe for her.

So our whole family committed to a dairy free diet seventeen years ago. It seems like just yesterday, oh how the time flies by. My husband found he felt so much better on a dairy free diet. (I also went dairy free until recently when I started eating cheese and milk again since I’m not allergic to milk) But baking and cooking was a more challenging adjustment for me so many years ago.

I didn’t really like to use lots of margarine in recipes. In case you don’t know it, most margarine in the store also contains dairy, so most of those weren’t an option for us either and the dairy free ones were expensive. So I started to experiment with substituting oils in recipes.

Did you know you can substitute olive oil for butter in recipes? The recipes turn out just as good but end up dairy free. Recently I purchased a new olive oil from Star Olive Oil, called Butter Oil. You can find it at Walmart next to the other Star Olive Oils.

Star Butter Oil is olive oil with the taste of butter. Now, that is something we could really use. I went over to their website and found that the butter oil is dairy free, they even have a handy conversion chart so you know how much oil you need to use in place of butter in recipes. I found a copy of the conversion chart attached to the bottle of Star Butter Oil I purchased.

I gave the Star Butter Oil a try in a few recipes, just to see how it would taste. I had already been using olive oil in so many of my recipes for baking and cooking but now I could have that buttery taste too.

My first recipe to try was a cookie recipe, sometimes cookies can be a little difficult to make with oil but these turned out just wonderfully. I made a batch of Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies. The cookie’s texture was the same as with margarine and they had that nice buttery flavor.

Mix the butter oil, applesauce and sugars well. Then stir in the eggs and vanilla.

In another bowl blend the oatmeal, flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Stir into sugar mixture and mix until well blended.

Stir in chocolate chips and nuts.

Refrigerate for half an hour.

Roll teaspoonfuls into balls and bake at 375 degrees for 12 minutes or until golden brown.

Cool on wire rack and enjoy.

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Potatoes are another food that I have missed butter flavor in since switching to dairy free living. The Star Butter Oil worked really well in my twice baked herb and butter potatoes. It was easy to switch from margarine to the butter oil. I just followed the conversion chart.

Prick potatoes with a knife or fork, then bake at 400 degrees for 45 to 60 minutes, or until cooked through.

Cut baked potatoes in half and let cool until they are cool enough to handle.

Scoop out the potato flesh with a spoon and add it to a bowl, keep the skins intact.

Add the butter oil, soy milk, salt, pepper, parsley and chives to the potato flesh and mix well. I like to use my potato masher for this job, but a spoon or fork will work.

Once mashed and mixed well, scoop the potato filling back into the potato skins, place into a shallow baking dish and set aside.

Mix the bread crumbs with the remaining butter oil and sauté in a skillet until the bread crumbs are slightly toasted.

Top the potatoes with the toasted bread crumbs, then bake at 350 degrees for 10 minutes or until heated through.

Enjoy!

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My next experiment was to make crackers with the Butter Oil. My family can go through crackers like crazy and the homemade ones go even faster. I usually will use margarine in this recipe but I thought the Butter Oil would be great in my cracker recipe.

My final test was to try out the Butter Oil in place of canola oil for popcorn. Popcorn is one of my family’s favorite snacks and we usually just pop it and sprinkle some salt on top and hope it sticks.

This time I drizzled a small amount of the Butter Oil on top and gave the popcorn a stir, then sprinkled with salt. That small amount of oil gave a nice butter flavor and helped the salt to stick, so we didn’t end up with all the salt at the bottom of the bowl.

I can see myself using the Star Butter Oil in so many dishes from pie crusts to roasted vegetables. If you want to see a few recipes be sure to check out Star Fine Foods Pinterest Page for more inspirations. While you are over at Pinterest be sure to follow me too.

Are you intrigued and want to give the Star Butter Oil a try? Head on over to enter their giveaway.